Shoppers skeptical over Singles Day sales

Shanghai consumers were more rational about this year's Singles Day sales events on the shopping websites taobao.com and tmall.com as nearly 40 percent of surveyed shoppers found that the goods sold by the online stores were not substantially cheaper than usual, local media reported Monday.

The Xinmin Evening News and Touchmedia polled 13,710 people to better understand consumer attitudes about the Singles Day sales, which have taken place every November 11 in recent years, the Xinmin Evening News reported. The date has become one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.

The survey found that about 32 percent of respondents saw the online sales as promotional campaigns and never participated in them. Another third said they believed that the day was a good time to shop because they could get good deals. When asked about their past impression of the Singles Day sales, more than 26 percent said that they had bought too many things that they did not really need. One-third of respondents were happy they were able to buy things at a discount.

Regarding online shopping expenditures, about 18 percent of respondents spent more than 10,000 yuan ($1,641). The highest proportion of respondents, 32 percent, said they spent less than 300 yuan on Singles Day.

As of 1:04 pm Monday, shop owners on taobao.com and tmall.com had sold more than 19.1 billion yuan worth of merchandise, matching the total sales of last year's Singles Day, according to tmall.com's microblog. By 9:19 pm, the total had risen to 30 billion yuan.